A Curious, Alternative Magazine

non-fiction

Most of the drama of this year’s World Cup in South Africa seems to be taking place off the pitch (thanks to the likes of John Terry, Raymond Domenech, and Nicolas Anelka), but that just serves to point out what Catalan novelist Manuel Vazquez Montalban (creator of the excellent Pepe Carvallho detective novels) put his finger […]

Novelists Paul Auster and David Grossman appeared together last night on Italian television in a show of solidarity with author Roberto Saviano, who for the last three years has lived under police protection after receiving death threats from the Italian criminal organisation the camorra. They join a growing list, including Salman Rushdie, who have appeared […]

As February draws to a close, and this blog’s ‘to read’ pile of books is increasingly resembling babel, it’s worth taking some consolation – knowing that a too-high percentage of these books will remain, forever, merely glanced at – offered up by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his rightfully acclaimed The Black Swan: The writer Umberto […]

A number of things have, until now, put me off reading the novels of Martin Amis. There was the infamous and justified criticism that his father Kingsley voiced, declaring that his novels had “that constant demonstrating of his command of English”. There was that poor introduction to his work that was Time’s Arrow – perhaps […]

Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer, a Palestinian activist who has legally contested land seizures. He is also one of the founders of Al Haq, a non-governmental organisation that works to protect human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. More importantly, for the purposes of this blog, he is a walker and a writer. These two […]

I very rarely have the cause or inclination to browse to the Financial Times, but was glad to have done so today. The immediate reasoning was to check for news on the troubled bank of which I am, unfortunately, an account holder. No particular joy there, but instead I stumbled upon an extract from Margaret […]